The service craft

Craft

Guests remember the room, the pace and the temperature of the plate. Ten guides to the part of private dining that never appears on the menu card.

Craft Centimetres before china

The Table: covers, spacing and what fits

How much table a guest needs, how far apart the chairs go, what a cover contains and why a table of twenty four seats twenty in comfort..

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Craft Five glasses per guest

Glassware: how many, which, and who polishes them

The count that catches every host out, the shapes that matter, the breakage rate to budget for and the twenty minutes of polishing that decide how the table looks..

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Craft The cheapest upgrade there is

Wine service: temperature, order, pouring

Serving temperature, decanting, the order of the bottles, how much to pour and why most home wine service fails before the first course..

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Craft Ratios, not guesses

The brigade: how many hands a dinner needs

How many cooks, how many servers, who leads them, what they cost and why the difference between a good and a bad evening is almost always two people..

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Craft Power, water, heat, cold

Building a kitchen where there is none

What a travelling brigade actually brings, how much power it draws, how much space it needs and which four questions decide whether your menu is possible..

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Craft The unglamorous half

Cold chain, allergens and the paperwork

The temperatures, the time limits, the allergen rules and the documents a professional supplier produces without being asked..

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Craft Twenty minutes, not forty

Timing and pace: the invisible course

How long a course should take, when to seat, what a delay costs, and how to write a service plan that a brigade can actually follow..

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Craft Warm, low, plentiful

Light, candles and what goes on the table

Colour temperature, candle counts, where the light must not be, and why the flowers on a dining table should be lower than a wine bottle..

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Craft Who sits where, and why

Seating, etiquette and the host’s job

How to seat a table so it talks, what a host actually does during dinner, when to stand, when to speak and how to end an evening kindly..

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Craft The hour nobody plans

Strike, waste and the handover

What happens between midnight and one: the wash up, the rental count, the rubbish, the leftovers and the state a kitchen should be left in..

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